.net assembly does not appear in Excel's References - vb.net

I'm following Rich Newman's guide to using .net code assemblies in Excel. I have made a small test class called MyPro[p in a project called MyProperty that looks like this:
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Public Class MyProp
Public Function GetData() As String
Return "Hello World"
End Function
End Class
It compiles fine, puts a CLSID into regedit, and (after browsing to find the TLB) allows itself to be added to Excel's References. However, I can't actually use it. I tried this in VBA:
Private Sub test()
Dim test As New MyProperty.MyProp
MsgBox test.GetData()
End Sub
Which returns:
"Class does not support Automation or does not support the expected interface"
I assume that the error means that it can't find GetData or I'm calling it incorrectly. I have re-added the TLB, with no effect.
Any ideas?

The problem has to do with the order of operations in the bindings. You can make this work by DIMming the object then Newing it on a separate line.

Related

VS Stopped detecting forms in code? // Value of type 'FormName' cannont be converted to 'Form'

I have an really strange error. I have an sub in a class (API.vb) called OpenApp(). It accepts a form argument (Public Sub OpenApp(app As Form)).
Now I have a few other forms called Settings, devtools, login and so on.
When I try API.OpenApp(Settings) or API.OpenApp(devtools) however, it gives me this error:
Value of type 'devtools' cannot be converted to 'Form'.'
There is nothing else in the solution declaring devtools, Settings and so on as other things apart from Forms in their classes. Even more, it used to work but it just randomly started doing this.
Edit: As some people asked here's how all of them are declared:
Public Class devtools
And settings:
Public Class Settings
I think you're getting the point now. Oh, and here's the API.OpenApp sub
Public Shared Sub OpenApp(app As Form)
Dim open As Form = OpenProgram(app)
app.Show()
End Sub
I think you have pretty much answered it yourself, in your comment. You need to pass an instance of the form to the sub eg:
Dim frm as new DevTools
API.OpenApp(frm)

How to instantiate a vba class and call a method from vb.net?

As I guess many are, I'm sitting with an ms access application with a mixture of tables, VBA Modules and VBA Classes. I intend to migrate that application to VB.NET.
However it will take some time and I would like to make use of automation to slowly move the code to VB.NET
Now I can call regular SUB and Functions from my VB.NET application but wonder if there is a way to invoke the methods of user defined objects.
Rough example what I want to do
VBA
'Class1
Public Sub Test()
Print "Hello world"
End Sub
'Module1
Public oClass1 as Class1
Public Sub Init()
Set oClass1 = New Class1
End Sub
VB.Net
' Left out the opening of the access db
oAccess.Run("Init")
oAccess.Run("oClass1.Test())
Is it even possible?
The Application.Run method requires a string containing "The name of the Function or Sub procedure to be run" as its first argument. But "oClass1.Test" is neither.
You could work around that issue by creating another VBA procedure which wraps your oClass1.Test method, and run the wrapper procedure ...
oAccess.Run("Wrap_oClass1_Test") ' no parentheses after procedure name
Public Sub Wrap_oClass1_Test()
oClass1.Test
End Sub
I confirmed that approach worked with the rest of your sample code when called from VBScript so I believe it should also work from VB.Net.
Tim's CallByName suggestion also looks promising, but I didn't test that one.

Intellisense not finding vb.net Extension

I created an extension method in VB.NET in Visual Studio 2013 but it will not show up in Intellisense.
Imports System.Security.Claims
Imports System.Runtime.CompilerServices
Imports Connect.Common.Portable
Namespace Authorization
Public Module ClaimsPrincipalExtensions
<Extension()>
Public Function CurrentFirmNumber(ByVal principal As ClaimsPrincipal) As Integer
Dim c As Claim = principal.FindFirst(AuthorizationClaimTypes.LOGGED_IN_FIRM_NUMBER)
If (c IsNot Nothing) Then
Dim firmNumber As Integer = 0
If (Integer.TryParse(c.Value, firmNumber)) Then
Return firmNumber
End If
End If
Return 0
End Function
End Module
End Namespace
I have tried everything I could find on StackOverflow and other sites to solve this to no avail, including everything mentioned here.
In my calling code I include the right namespace, and the compiler and runtime are perfectly happy if I call this extension. That is, the code runs fine and correctly calls the extension method. It is simply intellisense that doesn't show it to me.
However, if I try to reference the method directly using the full namespace, as opposed to from the extended object, it shows up in intellisense.
Any ideas?
UPDATE:
So, it gets weirder. I had a colleague open up the same source and he gets intellisense.
As well, original extensions that used to work for me now have the same intellisense problem. However, if I start typing out the extension name intellisense does see it once it becomes a unique name.
For example, If I type "CurrentPrincipal.Current.C" Intellisense suggests "Claims", but not "CurrentFirmNumber", as that is part of the type. However, if I add a "u" it then suggests "CurrentFirmNumber", which is my extension.

VB.NET: no warning when returning object that is not an instance of function's return type

We have this:
Friend NotInheritable Class ConcreteGraphFactory
Inherits AbstractGraphFactory
Public Shared ReadOnly Instance As New ConcreteGraphFactory()
Private Sub New()
MyBase.New()
End Sub
Friend Overrides Function Create() As AbstractGraph
Return New ConcreteGraph()
End Function
Private NotInheritable Class ConcreteGraph
Inherits AbstractGraph
Private ReadOnly Question1 As New Question("Why isn't this showing a warning?")
Public Overrides Function GetRoot() As IRoot
Return Question1 '<---HERE
End Function
Public Sub New()
End Sub
End Class
End Class
And I have IRoot:
Friend Interface IRoot
Inherits IQuestion
Function GetContainer() As AbstractGraph
End Interface
And finally Question:
Public Class Question
Implements IQuestion
' code....
End Class
Why would VS not show a warning? Question does not implement IRoot...
If you want the compiler to give an error there, then you need to set Option strict to On. You can do that on the Compile tab of the project's Properties. Or add Option Strict On to the top of the file that contains this code.
Here are a few pages that have more details about what Option Strict means.
http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/311329
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zcd4xwzs.aspx
Option Strict Off means that the Visual Basic compiler doesn't enforce strict data typing. It will try to do implicit type conversions and throw run time errors if that can't be done.
I didn't think it had anything to do with IRoot being an interface, but after trying it out it looks like it does. If GetRoot returned a class that Question didn't inherit from, then you would get a compiler error even with Option Strict off.
Running with Option Strict off actually makes some things easier, especially when dealing with late bound COM objects. For the most part, you don't have to worry about type casts when writing code.
However, it's also one of the reasons many people don't like VB.NET. Personally, I liked it when I was working with it, but it's been long enough now that it does seem strange that the compiler wouldn't be doing all the strict type checking for you. I could always tell when some VB code had been generated via a conversion tool from C# because it would have a bunch of DirectCast calls that you wouldn't see in code that a VB developer had written.
When C# came out with the dynamic keyword in 2009, the VB.NET developers were thinking, "Meh. We've always been able to write code without worrying about types." Of course, VB.NET wasn't the same as dynamic in C#, but many of the early dynamic code examples were showing things that you could already do in VB with option strict turned off.

Hide VBA procedures from Excel application but not from other projects

I know this is a long shot, but with the limitations in "Option Private Module" and even worse "Private Sub/Function", does anyone know if there is a way of hiding VBA procedures from the Excel application but not from other projects?
I have an XLAM with a subset of reusable functionality that I like to include and reference from new Excel projects, but using "Option Private Module" hinders this and if I omit it, a bunch of unusable or obscure functions and subs become visible and available to the application.
Convert your standard modules in the XLAM to class modules (set to
Public Not Creatable);
Create an additional Class Module that returns an instance (with a
bit of additional work, the instance) of each such module; and
Create a single standard module with one property that returns the instance of the main class-entry module.
Class1:
Option Explicit
Public Sub IAmInvisible()
End Sub
ModuleEntry:
Option Explicit
Private mClass As New Class1
Public Property Get TheClass() As Class1
Set TheClass = mClass
End Property